Thoughts on lunch

September 24, 2010

(hang on to your hats cuz this is gonna get deep)

If you know me, you know that I am not adventurous when it comes to trying different ethnic foods (these different ethnicities eat parts of animals that I don’t even want to look at, much less eat, so I have become very wary of their foods).

But good ole work meetings/birthday lunches/etc always drag me back out of my comfort zone for an hour or two. And I have been to way more Thai and Vietnamese restaurants in my few years here than I ever did before (think never). Today we went to a Japanese restaurant and I honestly don’t think I have ever gone to one before. Seriously, if I am going to hand over my hard earned money for a bite to eat, I want it to be something that I am going to like. So I really tend to play it safe when it comes to where I eat. You could call it boring if you like, whatever. I refuse to eat sushi. Refuse. And yes, everyone thinks they will be the one who will convince me to try it. Nope. Sorry. Not gonna happen.

Anyhow, back to the Japanese restaurant. We had actually had a birthday lunch here a month ago, but I declined then. This time however, I decided to go. Even though I wasn’t looking forward to the menu so much as just the chance to get an extra long lunch break, a chance to get out of the office, and a chance to hang out with my coworkers.

After deciding on something safe (yep, beef teriyaki) we sat and talked until our soup arrived. Okay, I’m not the hugest soup fan ever (although Corner Bakery has some pretty awesome loaded baked potato soup) but if you give me a bowl of soup that I have to drink, and it smells like pond water, and also tastes like pond water. Yeeeeahhhh, not gonna drink that. Sorry. I sipped it and ate the one lone noodle that was floating around all lonely like and that was that. It sat there the rest of the whole meal, smelling up the table and interfering with the rest of my dining experience. So yeah, no more miso soup for me (and to top it off, my coworker told it me it was basically made out of fermented bean mash. Yuck. Sorry, but yuck.)

J across from me started into her meal enthusiastically and was reprimanded by the waitress for not waiting until one of her sauces arrived (sorry, I’m really not good with all the different names of the things we ate.) She said “Can you please just wait until x gets here?.” And told her “no” when she dipped something into the “wrong” sauce. Sheesh, guess you can’t have it “any way you like it” here. We kept laughing about that because she was so emphatic that J was wrong and needed to stop, right now. It was kinda weird and awkward. Kinda reminded me of being reprimanded in Paris for bringing in my water bottle. Sheesh, sorry. I really don’t think the police are going to show up (he told me they would.)*

Anyways…I also noticed that their green tea ice cream looked suspiciously like their wasabi. (It also looked like guacamole, but considering we were not at a Mexican restaurant, I knew better. Yep, I’m smart like that.) But really? Who thought it would be a good idea to make green tea ice cream and wasabi look so similar? I mean, you could make the ice cream lighter or something.

And no, I didn’t eat the wasabi thinking it was ice cream. You thought I was going to say I did, huh? Sorry to disappoint. The thought did cross my mind though when they told me it would clear up my sinuses.

Results = I survived. I liked the teriyaki of course. Didn’t like the miso soup. I always love the sweet salad dressings. And those are my thoughts on lunch today.

*My confused thoughts at the moment…You want me to die of dehydration right here in your beautiful city? Am I the only freakin’ person drinking water in this city?